Chapter 13: Racial difference

Tom once again felt the familiar sensation of time stretching on as he viewed the presented knowledge about the Evil Piece, not interested in the trivial stuff and only using his limited magic power to view the important bits such as how it was created, the principles on which it worked, the magics and materials necessary for its construction...

After a long time of sifting through all of that, Tom felt his available magic power was starting to run low so he quickly ceased using his Sacred Gear and...

Pain!

A massive amount of scorching hot pain instantly racked his entire being, causing him to topple over, and forcing him to grit his teeth as he almost started screaming. The thrashing around, however, he couldn't stop.

Sarael instantly jumped to his feet, shocked beyond belief at what happened. At one moment, Tom was fine, then he suddenly grew still and his eyes became unfocused, only for him to start spasming in excruciating pain a second later.

He didn't even have time to try sensing what Tom was doing before he had to act.

Inspecting Tom, Sarael found out that every muscle in Tom's body was under a massive strain and...

"Geez, whatever you did was extremely dumb." He playfully reprimanded Tom while taking out a potion from under the table and feeding it to him.

The damage was not massive so using a Phoenix Tear would be an overkill. That fact saved Tom from having to pay up another fifty million to Sarael, to be honest.

Guest or not, Sarael would not waste a Phoenix Tear for free.

Knowing that his 'patient' was not in any immediate danger of life and would be fine in a few minutes, Sarael sat back in his seat and leaned back, gleefully leaving Tom to struggle with his pain.

Sarael simply amusedly watched his suffering while thinking that painkillers would be a waste for such a reckless fool. This way, he might even learn a valuable lesson to not mess with dangerous magic again.

As Tom was gritting his teeth through the excruciating pain, he couldn't help but curse the prick doctor for not doing his job properly. What kind of quack doesn't give a suffering patient some painkillers!?

Minutes slowly passed and Tom's repressed silent screams slowly turned into whimpers, before easing into labored breathing until the pain completely ceased, and Tom was just lying on his back, staring at the ceiling and enjoying the sweet feeling of having air peacefully go in and out of his nose as he breathed.

That... was one of the worst experiences he had ever lived through.

His mind wandered towards the magic crystals around his neck... and a relieved smile appeared on his face when he noticed all three of them empty, with only the last one having three more percent of magic in it.

At least he got... most of what he wanted, inwardly hoping that he would never need to inspect a powerful magical object such as the Evil Pieces ever again.

'Or I could simply get stronger so my body can bear the channeling of mana.' Tom inwardly mused, knowing that it was easier said than done. Especially so for the squishy humans.

"What exactly did you do?" Sarael's voice pulled Tom out of his musings.

Tom lazily looked at Sarael, hesitating a bit, before he sighed, "I used self-made Spell, hoping it would work." He wryly shrugged, causing Sarael to deadpan at him.

"I'd recommend you to not do that ever again." He dryly said. "Your spell-crafting ability clearly sucks."

"Guhh." Tom played along, grimacing at the rebuttal. In his mind, though, he was happy his use of Sacred Gear was not discovered.

"So? Did this self-mutilation enable you to discover something about the Evil Piece?" Sarael leaned closer to Tom, curiosity written all over his face.

Despite his earlier provocation, he held at least a measure of expectations for the man who managed to create potions capable of healing devils. He doubted Tom would succeed but maybe...?

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Tom's grimace deepened at the question, and he irritably huffed, "No." He crossed his arms and looked aside, making Sarael boisterously laugh at the petulant and childish reaction.

Acting like this was humiliating for Tom but it was the best way to lie in his situation. He wasn't very confident in staring Sarael in the eyes and calmly lying to his face. The man was experienced in making deals and subtly maneuvering them to his advantage. Of course, he would be good at telling lies.

But when facing somebody like that, the best way to fool them is to give them a reaction they would have expected. In this case, it was a magician with his pride hurt because he failed.

"Mah, mah, don't get butthurt." Sarael barked out from between his laughter, "Not even the Lords of the Pillar Houses could figure it out, and trust me, we tried! Oh, how we tried! If you managed it, I wouldn't mind you marrying my cute angel, boy!" His irritating laughter made Tom's scowl deepen, even making it real.

Sarael suddenly stopped laughing when he realized what he had just said, and looked at Tom in alarm, "Don't tell my wife I said that."

He seemed genuinely afraid at the prospect, causing Tom to chuckle, "Eh, is the big bad devil whipped?" He wiggled his eyebrows at Sarael.

Sarael just dismissively waved his hand around, "If you stay the night, you will understand why I wouldn't want to make my wife mad at me. Despite being a stern frigid bitch most of the time, she is a marvel in bed." His smile showed a hint of desire, "She is everything you could expect from a devil indulgent in lust." He dreamily sighed.

"What?" Tom's mind halted when he heard what Sarael said. He was confused as he wondered if he heard Sarael right. Did he really imply...?

"What 'what'?" Sarael furrowed his eyebrows, not understanding what Tom was asking.

"Did you just... offer me your wife?" Tom looked at his host as if he grew a second head. Whatever method to manipulate him they used earlier was fine and Tom could understand that but this... this was something he couldn't wrap his head around.

"Oh!" Sarael exclaimed as if he just had a revelation, "I guess it could be easily misunderstood." He chuckled with a nod, and Tom sighed in relief that it was just a misunderstanding. Not even devils would be so depraved to...

"I and Lareth have been together for more than a millennium by now." Sarael started, halting Tom's thought process again, "I know every inch of the woman's body. We did everything with each other. We even had really silly ideas like saving up enough of our… fluids to fill an entire bathtub with it and then have wild sex while bathing in it." Sarael casually shrugged, ignoring Tom's cringing, "It took us almost three decades to save up enough of it for that but with age and boredom some really messed up stuff comes to mind."

By now, Tom was gaping at the nonchalant devil. First, he found the mental image of that... disgusting. Ew...

Secondly... What the hell? His mind was barely keeping up with registering what Sarael was talking about. Murder and manipulation? That he could stomach. But this level of sexual depravity was a foreign concept to him. One he didn't really want to get acquainted with.

But Sarael was not done yet much to Tom's chagrin. "Every old devil couple has the same problem. After a few centuries, it gets boring with one partner. Not even the famous Sirzechs Lucifer and Grayfia Lucifuge whose love story is known all over the underworld to be eternal are any different. They have a manor full of maids and I just so happen to know that both Grayfia and Sirzechs use them for other stuff than just what is required of a regular maid. That doesn't mean they don't love each other. But spicing things up in bedroom activities is simply normal for us, the old folk."

Sarael tried to give Tom an acceptable example but he couldn't take into account that Tom was a reincarnated person with prior knowledge and impressions of these people. This shattered quite a lot of his previous notions.

And yet, when Sarael saw Tom's put-off expression, he decided to hammer the head of the nail, so to speak, and continued explaining. "But that's still kind of mild among our race. Let's stay with Gremorys since they are kind of mild cases among our kind and probably loosely acceptable for a human moral compass. Lord Gremory has a harem of 'toys' and Venelana, his wife, is managing it while she has her own friends with benefits on the side. It might seem like a normal case for devils but there is a reason why not one woman from Zeoticus's harem ever had a child. Venelana is using her Power of Destruction to prevent that if you know what I mean." Sarael gave Tom a meaningful look.

"Compared to that, what my wife and I are doing is nothing extraordinary. We just take people into our bedroom to have more fun. Honestly, I have no idea what's the big deal. " Sarael shrugged, "You could probably get along well with my oldest girl. Her age and still a virgin. I even jokingly offered her to join us in bed out of sheer desperation, thinking that if I want to have grandkids from her, I will have to fill her with them myself, but she refused and didn't speak with me for decades after that, the old prune! I guess I will really have to depend on Sona to make me a granddaddy. I just hope she will find a husband before her first century is up." He sighed in resignation.

Tom had heard enough, though. "No... no, thank you. I think I am not interested in joining your sex life." He tried to refuse politely but his aversion could most likely be clearly heard from his tone.

This... was the first major hit to Tom's common sense. The first situation where he really understood that devils, despite looking like humans, are in fact not humans and that they think differently and have different values.

It... hit him a bit harder than he thought.

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